Snow day.........finally.

Mike Kennedy

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We finally got a dumping of snow last night without the usual rain follow up. Off to the woods today to do some B&W landscape work using 35mm film.
While brushing up on winter photo tecniques (it's been that long)I have noticed a number of threads that mention opening up 1 1/2-2 stops. How can I adjust my Nikon gear (FE, FE2) or Pentax (KX,MX) for 1/2 stops? The solution is probably so simple that I'm missing it , or, I need another cup of coffee to jump start my brain.

Many Thanks
 

Steve Smith

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If you don't have an exposure compensation dial, then fool the meter by changing the film ISO/ASA. e.g. for ISO100 film, a setting of 50 will give a one stop increase, 25 will give a two stop increase and about 32 will give 1.5 stops increase.



Steve.
 

ijsbeer

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Hi ,

The suggestion that Steve offers is a very good one. altough my workmethod is a bit different.
first I meter and make a photo,
then I bracket towards 1,5 stops overexposure with a photo at every half stop.
hope this helps

Ijsbeer
 

naturephoto1

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Hi Mike,

The opening up of the aperture of 1 1/2 stops for snow or white areas is more for transparencies where you do not wish to burn out highlights. With transparencies you would then bracket in 1/3 or 1/2 stop increments. There is enough latitude in B&W where this may not be necessary. However 1 stop increments will quite likely to be adequate for bracketing in B&W or color negatives.

Rich
 

Paul Sorensen

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One other thing to try is to find a detail that you want to be medium gray in your image and meter on it. You will likely need to move in to that detail since I don't think that any of your cameras have spot metering, but that won't make any difference. Say you have a tree that is the right color of gray, just walk up toward it, making sure that you don't shade it with your body, and meter on the tree. From that you should be able to get a pretty accurate exposure. You can also use that reading to get an idea of how much to adjust for future exposures, so you don't have to repeat the exercise.

In any case, I would recommend some bracketing. If you are shooting according to the tree, you run the risk of blowing out the snow, even if you have the "correct" exposure, so if I did it that way, I would bracket a couple of shots with less exposure. If I were to just meter the whole scene with the camera, I would do as Rich says.
 

Michel Hardy-Vallée

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Speaking of snow, is that a fact that it reflects a lot more UV than visible light, thus making meter readings taken directly on it unreliable by a stop or two?
 

copake_ham

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As to the original query; although you're lenses have "clicks" at the regular f-stops - you can set the aperture b/w the clicks for 1/2-stops. The aperture is continuously variable - the clicks are simply a helpful guide to the standard stop settings (e.g. very convenient for low light work where you need to go by "feel" rather than "sight").
 

BWGirl

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Just as I predicted, right, Mike!
 
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